America’s Cup: Down Under Team Now Underdog

The 34th America’s Cup on San Francisco seems like a lifetime ago, what with all the changes and uncertainty about the venue, boat, and teams that will compete in 2017. But after nearly two years from the storybook ending of Oracle Team USA’s successful defense, the America’s Cup activity will soon return to the water in the form of the America’s Cup World Series (ACWS) on July 25-26 in Portsmouth, UK.

The ACWS format has been revised, which is now a two day schedule with only fleet racing. Points collected from the events in 2015 and 2016 will count towards the format to determine the challenger for the America’s Cup in 2017.

Emirates Team New Zealand, the challenger that came so close in 2013 to winning the America’s Cup, finds themselves in a new position for the 35th America’s Cup … an underdog.

After months of restructuring and resignations, they have finally taken to the water, but they are doing so with rookie Peter Burling, the 24-year-old who is in the deep end as helmsman for the first America’s Cup World Series regatta.

“We know these other guys have been sailing foiling 45s for a long time, and this is my first day ever sailing one of these boats last week,” says Burling to 3 News. “Our learning curve’s going to be really steep over this next little bit, but it’s something that we really kind of back our chances to be able to out-learn the other guys.”

Mastering the boat is one thing, gelling as a group is another considering only three of the crew who raced at the last America’s Cup are still with the team. Is the team’s chief executive Grant Dalton concerned the team might lose crew to Dean Barker’s new Japanese syndicate?

“We haven’t yet that I’m aware of… it’s possible for sure,” says Dalton. “If it’s a case of people we didn’t re-sign then I can’t have a grumble with that.”

Some contracts at Team New Zealand will prevent crew from joining other syndicates, but late resignations may have a damning impact on the upcoming regatta in Portsmouth.

The team have limited time to train with the AC45 – they have five days in England, then some of the team have commitments to other regattas throughout Europe, and then back to Portsmouth this time next month.